Friday, April 15, 2016

Why I Always Use a Seatbelt on The Bus

Taking the bus is extremely common in Spain. It's one of
the cheapest forms of transportation for vacations, or when working in a
pueblo while living in a bigger city. Sure, there's Blablacar, which I
used to use when travelling but now I try to avoid it. I'll explain why,
but first, a question: when you take the bus, do you buckle up?
I ask
because several days per week, I take the bus from Jaén to a pueblo 20
minutes down the highway. And I seem to be the only one who buckles up.
For as long as I can remember, I've always done it. I recall two years
ago that a woman boarded my bus and placed her toddler in the seat next
to me and sat in the seat across the aisle. In Spanish, I asked the
child, "Do you want your seatbelt?" to which she nodded no. Minutes into
the trip, the bus braked suddenly, and the mom threw her arm across to
try to hold her daughter in her seat, but several seconds too
late. The braking was too sudden for anyone to react quickly enough.
Only after that incident did she buckle up her child. The bus filled with the sounds of clicks, as other travellers did the same.
Last Christmas, a seatbelt saved my life. I was in an extremely serious
highway accident, in which the car I was in flipped several times
across the road. During the flipping, the extremely large suitcases that
were beside me in the backseat, with almost all of the items in the car,
went flying out the windows. All of the glass was smashed, of course.
When the car came to a stop, it was sitting on its roof and we were
suspended upside-down by our seatbelts. Myself and the driver were
extremely lucky; we crawled out with hardly any physical injuries. But
our friend, who was sitting in front of me, died. Everytime I think
about that night, I realize how lucky I was. 'What ifs' play across my
mind, such as "What if I'd unclicked my belt, for just a second? For
example, to remove my coat?" I recall times when I was young, removing
my belt so I could crawl into the backseat and grab a snack or CDs,
while speeding along the highway. So foolish. Having had healing and enough time, I'm now able to sit in the work carpool without feeling
anxious during the 20-minute highway journey. I'm still cautious though,
and haven't used Blablacar since the accident. A friend told me that
years ago, the car he was in broke down, and when the Blablacar
passengers asked the driver to call a tow truck, he said, "I don't have
insurance." Although I pay more and spend more time taking the trains
and buses, I prefer that to the risk of unskilled / uninsured drivers.
I hope my story reminds people to use seatbelts, even when it's not the
norm, such as on buses. It's a stupidly simple action, but it can
change your life.